Before They Reflect
by Green Rainboots
Summary: Santana knows where Marley's coming from. And she can damn well make sure that someone is there for Marley. Make sure that her own history isn't repeated in a young girl who might not have the backbone or the attitude to pull herself up. Warnings for eating disorders.


_"Mirrors should think longer before they reflect." - Jean Cocteau_

* * *

Santana starts cutting down on her food and puking a few times a week about two months after she joins the Cheerios. Coach Sue only accepts the best of the best, and that includes being the prettiest of the prettiest as well. She doesn't accept fatties on her squad. She doesn't even accept people that just have a normal face. No, every Cheerio has to be gorgeous, and every Cheerio has to be slim. Thin, even. And while the workout that comes with cheerleading should be enough to keep someone in good shape, it's not. Not really. Not if you don't eat properly. And after being shouted at for being too heavy to stand on someone else's shoulders without them shaking beneath her, Santana runs to the girls' bathroom and sticks two fingers in her throat.

She cries for the rest of the day. Her mother gets fussy and worried and asks her what's wrong, but Santana just manages to choke out that someone said something mean to her, and that she'll be over it by tomorrow.

After lying awake most of the night thinking, Santana decides that a change in eating habits is in order. So she starts eating a little less for breakfast, and a little less for lunch. She's pretty sure she's doing a good job of trimming down her figure. At least, that's what she thinks until Coach Sue introduces the team to her special little cocktail that includes many gross things and, most importantly, a something that actually has the purpose of making people gag.

Santana, Brittany, and Quinn don't even question it. They just accept the flasks.

But Santana has trouble drinking it. The mixture tastes absolutely vile, and getting it past her lips is painful. So she drinks a little less of it than Quinn, and probably also Brittany, and instead resorts to sticking her fingers down her throat again.

In her sophomore year, the first fat girl joins the Cheerios.

Coach Sue is on a mission to change people, so she recruits Hummel and Jones, even though Mercedes Jones is a big-ass girl, and could definitely do with some slimming down. Which she also tries to do, per Coach Sue's request. Both she and Hummel try, but neither of them are willing to drink the vomit-inducing drinks. So Santana just tells them to eat less. Nothing at all, if they can get away with it, and not collapse during practice. It's the easiest way to trim your figure quickly. They both follow her advice, until recently-kicked-off-the-team Quinn tells Jones to feel good about herself and her body, and then Jones does a performance in the gym in front of everyone, and she gets a lot of support. And then Coach Sue decides to get a smidgen of a conscience. She demands that everyone give back their flasks of her disgusting cocktails, and she vows to never make another one again. They'll have to find different ways to keep looking pretty, because puking after every meal is not right.

Santana is happy to turn in her flask and know that she'll never have to drink that stupid cocktail again, but she doesn't stop puking. She just starts using the good old-fashioned way instead. Two fingers down her throat a few times a week, and Santana is good to go.

People start finding out. She pukes more often, so people start catching her in the act.

Quinn and Brittany have known practically from the very beginning. Brittany because Santana has trouble hiding anything from her, and Quinn because she was right there with her, forcing herself to throw up twice a week before they got the flasks. She even encouraged Santana to keep doing it. Until she got pregnant and got kicked off and suddenly, somehow, realized that accepting yourself is way more healthy.

Puck is the first outside The Unholy Trinity to find out. Not surprising, really. She spends a lot of time with him. He wants to get laid, she wants to prove to herself that she likes men (a hopeless cause, really, but she's persistent), so they meet up after school often. Also, he has no respect for the girls' bathroom being the girls' bathroom, meaning no guys allowed. He catches her stuffing two fingers in her throat after lunch one day, having snuck in to peek at the girls. He doesn't confront her, not really. He just looks at her kind of disapprovingly, to make it clear that he knows, and then they both leave. The story on Jacob Ben Israel's blog is that they were having a lunch-time quickie.

After that it's a slowly but steadily rising number of people who know. Hummel and Jones find out when they join the Cheerios. Finn finds out after he loses his virginity to her, and he catches her throwing up in the bathroom afterwards. She doesn't explain it to him, blaming it instead on the bad room service, but Puck does explain it to him. Tina finds out when she hears from Hummel and Jones. She doesn't know how Wheels or Mike find out, but they do. Berry finds out when she walks in on Santana after school, finally not too scared of The Unholy Trinity to be in the same bathroom as one of them.

They all find out but nobody does anything.

Santana continues for a long time. No one does anything to stop her, and she can't think of any other way to please Coach Sue and meet her expectations. When she quits the Cheerios in her junior year, Santana briefly stops. Then one evening, she pukes without inducing it herself. And not knowing it was coming made the whole thing a lot more uncomfortable, so she starts up on her own again.

It's not until after the big Prom Queen fiasco that she stops for good.

Brittany rejecting her for Artie hurt enough to keep her going for a while. Having to keep hiding herself kept her going. But after watching Kurt win Prom Queen, she does something she never thought she'd do. Because she's upset, at first that she didn't win (especially when her pathetic closet-case of a running mate won King), and then when Brittany tells her that she needs to go back to the gym and be there for Kurt, who just got humiliated beyond anything any of them have ever seen.

And Santana watches him be stronger and more persistent and sassy than anyone she's ever seen, when he accepts that crown. She's proud of him, but at the same time, she feels something rot inside herself. She could never have done that if she'd been humiliated that badly.

When she gets home, her parents are already in bed, and Santana strips out of her dress and puts on her pajamas, and then she takes on the kitchen. She eats whatever she can as fast as she can. She pulls everything out of the fridge and the cupboards, and ice cream out the freezer, and she stuffs herself beyond full. She eats and eats and eats. Cake, ice cream, bread, cold leftovers like soup, chicken, roast beef, and pasta, fruit, salad, vegetables, anything. Anything she can eat without preparing it first. Anything she can stuff down her throat quickly.

And then, at some point, her stomach lurches in protest and she pukes in the kitchen sink. When she sees the state of the kitchen itself afterwards, she breaks down in silent, but violent sobs and collapses against the fridge.

Binge eating.

That's what she just did. Binge eating.

It terrifies her. Binge eating is something bulimics do, and only the crazy are bulimic. Santana's not crazy. Not like that, anyway. But what she just did contradicts that, and it terrifies the living shit out of her. What if she does it again? What if she actually becomes a real bulimic, and needs therapy and pills and maybe even a hospital?

The whole experience is terrifying and upsetting and heart wrenching enough for Santana to stop, just like that. Cold turkey. No more puking, at all.

She sometimes wants to, though. Then she reminds herself of that night, and the urge goes away.

She knows what Marley's doing as soon as she sees her flinching after The Unholy Trinity do their impromptu performance for the new Glee girls. Santana and Quinn both did the same thing for a while, the flinching thing. She knows the signs. Marley is a young, impressionable girl, desperate to fit in and please everyone. It won't have been too hard for someone to convince her to start forcing herself to puke.

Which is why Santana digs through Marley's bag when the girl is rehearsing with everyone else, and finding laxatives just about proves Santana right. And Marley, being young and impressionable, can't lie to Santana, who is older, experienced, and tough as a nail. She tells Santana everything, right from the beginning at the pre-Grease slumber party where Kitty told her about it. Santana finds herself completely underwhelmed and not surprised at all that it was Kitty who convinced Marley to stuff two fingers in her throat. She loves Quinn and all, but anyone who is that massive a fan of an alumna cheerleader that went through a new crazy phase every year, has to have a screw loose somewhere.

And it makes Santana absolutely seethe. What the hell has Kitty been thinking, encouraging someone to become full-on bulimic? Is she insane? Kitty brings out every murderous tendency she ever experienced when she and her friends were being harassed, every desire to maim and murder she had when Kurt was forced to leave McKinley, or when Blaine had to have surgery, or when she found out about that dickwad Cooter Menkins hitting Coach Beiste.

It's not a pleasant feeling. It's familiar, but it's not pleasant, and it makes Santana's insides squirm in much the same way they do when she thinks too much about her own experiences with puking up her dinner, and why she stopped doing it.

She doesn't want Marley to go there. She doesn't want someone like sweet, innocent little Marley to find herself crying her eyes out in her prom dress after eating everything in the house and throwing it up in the sink.

So instead, Santana pounces on Kitty.

Asking Quinn to make Kitty stop got her absolutely nowhere, and when Marley passes out from dehydration and hunger during Sectionals, Santana boils over. When the rest of the group has scattered to lick the wounds of losing Sectionals, for the first time since New Directions was formed, and to take care of Marley, Santana holds Kitty back.

"Listen here, missy," she hisses. Kitty already looks scared, which is good. Santana isn't sure she'd be able to handle it if Kitty just looked smug. "I don't know who you think you are, I don't know why you're convincing my girl that she needs to lose weight, and I don't really care either. But what I do know is that you're gonna lay off her. You're gonna stop jerking her around and messing with her head, and you're gonna practice being a nice, respectable person, and not this evil, scheming little skinny-ass bitch that you are right now."

Kitty swallows nervously, and then composes herself a little.

"And you think you're the right person to tell me to be respectable?" she snaps. Santana is about two words away from slapping her.

"You're a good actress, I'll give you that. You've got everyone here fooled into thinking that you don't need anybody to tell you, but you do," Santana crosses her arms over her chest. "And since I'm the only one who can see that, I'm the one telling you."

Since Kitty looks terrified, Santana decides that she's said all she needs to say, and turns around to leave. When she's just a few feet away from the door, the sound of Quinn arguing with Puck about Jake reaches her ears and she stops.

"One more thing," she says and turns back to Kitty. "What would Quinn Fabray do?" Kitty blushes a bit. "She'd give her friend a candy bar. Not tips on how to be a bulimic."

And with that, Santana leaves the choir room.

She finds Marley curled up on the floor in the girls' bathroom with Mercedes and Unique. Mercedes has a collection of candy bars on the floor in front of them, but Marley looks terrified and ashamed, and she's sobbing violently, clutching a half-empty water bottle to her chest. It's a little too reminiscent of herself for Santana's taste, but she doesn't know how to stop it, and she wants to help her girl. So she crouches down on the floor in front of them and pulls Marley into a tight hug. Unique looks mostly surprised, but Mercedes looks at Santana like she's telling her to do something.

Unique might still see Santana as the bitch she was mostly known for being in high school, but Mercedes knows.

After about ten minutes, Marley's mom comes to collect her, and unique goes home shortly after.

"I need a word with Puck's mini-me," Santana says.

"I thought this was Kitty's doing," Mercedes frowns, but she follows Santana out of the bathroom nonetheless.

"It is, and we've already had words," Santana replies. "But I also need a word with Marley's little admirer."

They find Jake standing awkwardly off to the side of where Quinn is still shouting at Puck.

"Excuse me, I need a word with Puckerman Junior," Santana says. It makes Quinn and Puck shut up, and it makes Jake squirm slightly. "I hope for your sake that you had nothing to do with Kitty's little plot to make Marley starve herself to death –"

"Hey, you don't –" Quinn interrupts, but Mercedes intercepts before she can get far.

"It was Kitty. I know you like and that she's a fan of you, but she did this to Marley," she says sternly.

"And like I said, junior, I hope for your sake that you weren't in on Kitty's plan," Santana says. "Because if you were then you better stay the hell away from my girl, at least if you know what's good for you. I may be in Louisville, but I have spies all over the school, and I will not let you get away with something like that. She likes you, a lot, and you are not gonna use that to get her down in any way. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," Jake replies shakily, and he looks terrified.

"Good. I'm glad we had this chat," Santana smiles and then links her arm through Mercedes', and they leave.

"You sure are awfully protective of Marley," Mercedes comments.

"I like her," Santana shrugs. "And also… with the whole bulimia thing…"

"I know," Mercedes says simply.

Yeah. They both know that Santana knows where Marley's coming from on that account.

And Santana pulled herself up. She gave herself a big enough scare to shake herself out of it and get better. But she did it all on her own. She didn't even request help from a professional, she just went cold turkey, from one day to the other. And it's an effective method of doing it, but maybe, just maybe, if someone had stepped in and helped Santana earlier, then she wouldn't have had that experience in the kitchen. Maybe she would've been different. Maybe things would've turned out differently.

It doesn't matter much, though. What happened to Santana happened in the past, nothing can change that.

But Santana can damn well make sure that someone is there for Marley. Make sure that her own history isn't repeated in a young girl who might not have the backbone or the attitude to pull herself up.


End file.
